Despite an initial target of 20 million seedlings for this year’s Green Ghana Day project, 22,671, 696 seedlings were distributed across the country.
Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio explained that the excess distribution was an indication of the enormous interest in the project by the public which would ultimately results in meeting the target.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday to thank Ghanaians for participating in the exercise, he said, the ministry was currently collating data on the number of trees planted and would in due course announce the figures.
He called on groups and individuals which participated in the project to nurture the trees planted to maturity.
“We need to make conscious efforts to nurture the trees by watering them, protect them from destruction, prevent fires, weed under them until they grow to maturity,” he said.
By way of funding, he stated that, donations from corporate organisations as well as the GH¢6 million out of the budgeted GH¢9.6 million released by government supported the project’s implementation.
He said due to the high volumes of rainfall recorded this year, the ministry was expecting a high tree survival rate more than the 85 per cent survival rate last year.
Mr Owusu-Bio said the ministry had established a Monitoring and Assessment Team under the Chairmanship of Francis Manu-Adabor, who is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forest to undertake comprehensive field assessment of trees planted this year.
Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, John Allotey, providing details of the exercise, said, 40.2 per cent of the seedlings distributed were planted in forest reserves while the remaining were planted at open spaces, farms, river banks, designated lands, school campuses, among others.
He said all the regions and various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were given planting targets, which was a guide towards the meeting that 20 million national target.
Mr Allotey noted that among the 16 regions, the Ashanti, Ahafo, Bono, Bono East, Eastern and the Greater Accra Regions exceeded their target while the Northern, North East and Oti Regions were yet to meet their target due to low rainfall in these regions.
He explained that most forest districts in the Ashanti and Ahafo regions, however exceeded planting targets.
In all, he stated that 55 different tree species including 17 million timber and 900,000 fruit were planted in this year’s project.
Religious groups including the Church of Pentecost, Methodist Church of Ghana, Catholic Church, Apostolic Church of Ghana and Presbyterian Church of Ghana were part of the exercise.
The Chief Executive Officer said the group planted more than one million seedlings across the country while private timber companies also engaged in large-scale planting.
Mr Allotey said the project implementation team undertook the needed checks on land available for the tree planting to avoid land litigations which could mar the project.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
